Presentation on theme: "Naturalizing epistemic norms May 16, 2012. Why does « acceptance » deserve attention? Used in a descriptive way to characterize a systems knowledge in."— Presentation transcript:

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Why does « acceptance » deserve attention? Used in a descriptive way to characterize a systems knowledge in terms of propositional contents and attitudes such as beliefs and desires (« belief box » paradigm) Semantic problems arise when treating any acceptance as a belief-like attitude 2

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Why does « acceptance » deserve attention? Descriptive accuracy requires philosophers of mind to explore how cognitive agency determines attitude selection and relation of attitude content to the decision for or against acting on it. Dynamics of cognitive agency imposes recognizing the various epistemic dimensions relevant to cognitive revision 3

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Why does « acceptance » deserve attention? A second reason has to do with the fact that, in acceptance, epistemic norms, on the one hand, and instrumental and rationality (decision-theoretic) norms, on the other, are often explicitly conflated. Example: Bratman (1999), Dretske (2000), Gibbard (2003). 4

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No consensus about the norm(s) of acceptances Velleman (2000) regarding a proposition P as true, even though it may not be "really true Cohen (1992): "a policy for reasoning, (..) the policy of taking it as a premise that P. Stalnaker (1987): Sometimes it is reasonable to accept something that one knows or believes to be false Bratman (1999): Acceptances conjoin epistemic and practical goals. 7

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Why is accepting contextual? It is left unclear how a context of acceptance can be construed in a way that justifies applying fluctuating epistemic standards. 8

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Puzzles about acceptance The lottery paradox (Kyburg, 1961, p. 197) arises from considering a fair 1000 ticket lottery with one winning ticket: It is rational to accept that some ticket will win, while also accepting that ticket 1, 2 etc. will not win. Aggregating acceptances results in inconsistency 9

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The preface paradox A writer may rationally accept that each statement in his book is true, while at the same time rationally accepting that his book contains at least one error (Makinson 1965). Aggregating acceptances again results in inconsistency 10

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A slippery slope between truth and utility? Some authors seem to consider that acceptance conjoins epistemic and instrumental norms, which questions the very notion of having epistemic norms in the first place (what if truth can be accommodated according to utility?) 11

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« For almost twenty years there have been signs that the theory of rational acceptance suffers from deep foundational difficulties. These difficulties ultimately call into question the very intelligibility of what we are saying when we say of someone that she accepts a proposition ». Mark Kaplan (1981) 12

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What should a theory of acceptance include? 1. Explain how acceptance can one possibly conjoin an epistemic requirement and utility considerations, without compromising the constitutive role of epistemic requirements in thought. 2. Explain how a context of acceptance is to be construed in a way that justifies applying different epistemic standards (in particular: solve the preface and lottery puzzles). 3. Determine the nature and scope of the various types of acceptance 13

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Epistemic norms determine which mental action is being performed Example: trying to remember accurately who was there at a meeting: correction requires no false positives, but tolerates omissions. Trying to remember exhaustively who was there at a meeting: correction tolerates false positives, but requires no omission. two distinct cognitive actions, which respond to different norms. 17

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Analogy of action control in the physical/mental case: physical action A n agent needs to assess beforehand whether she can perform a given action (in particular when the action is unfamiliar). (Jeannerod, 1997) Subsequently, she needs to monitor how well her intended action is executed ( by comparing sequentially the expected with the observed feedback) Such monitoring is what allows the agent to stop acting (Frith, 1990). 18

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Analogy of action control in the physical/mental case: mental action Self-probing: an agent need to determine in advance whether her epistemic action has any chance of being successfully completed Post evaluating: an agent need to determine ex post how successful, or close to success, her action as executed seems to be. Again, stored and observed values are compared, in a norm-specific way. (Proust, 2009, 2012, in print) 19

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What are epistemic norms? The normative feature of epistemic norms derives from the structure of action being polarized (success vs failure) A given norm is what regulates self-evaluation, i.e. action monitoring, in a task-specific way. Norms can be epistemic, moral, rational, social, (aesthetic?) Epistemic norms are those that regulate self- evaluation in cognitive actions. 20

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Although a simple mental action cannot be subject both to epistemic and non-epistemic norms, a complex action can 21

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how do epistemic actions contribute to world-directed action? An epistemic action is usually embedded in an instrumental (world- directed) action. For example: In order to shop for food, I need to remember the items on the list (which I forgot to bring with me). 22

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The epistemic norm guiding a mental action is selected on the basis of the ultimate goal of the world-directed action 23

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Epistemic norm selection does not jeopardize the autonomy of the epistemic Once a given norm is selected, the process of acceptance building proceeds independently from utility. The output of a process of acceptance can be seen either as Accepting/rejecting P under norm N n Accepting P under norm N n with degree D 24

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Context determined by the relation between epistemic norm and strategy Utility dictates that a given norm will be used to control cognitive activity given ones ultimate goal. Context is determined by selecting a cognitive action as relevant to an ultimate goal. 29

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Selecting a norm for instrumental reasons does not influence correctness Agents' epistemic confidence in accepting n P (accepting P under norm n) is not influenced by the cost or benefit associated with being wrong or right: the epistemic content is not influenced by utility. (Goldsmith & Koriat, 2008) Thus we don't need to endorse the view that an epistemic acceptance of P is yielding to utility considerations, as Bratman suggests. 31

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Solution of the lottery puzzle An agent accepts at (as accurate truth) that there is one winning ticket in the one thousand tickets actually sold She does not need to accept pl (as plausible or likely) that the single ticket she wants to buy will be the winning one. There is no contradiction between the two acceptances, because they respond to different epistemic norms and their associated semantics. 32

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Solution of the preface puzzle The author's epistemic goal is one of offering an ideally comprehensive presentation of his/her subject matter: she can accept ct (comprehensive truth) that her book includes all the truths relevant to her subject, while accepting pl (accepting as plausible or likely) that one of her claims is false. Hence, a mental act of acceptance ct does not allow aggregation of truth, because its aim is exhaustive (include all the relevant truths) rather than accurate truth (include only truths). 33

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Why strategic acceptance ? A subject may or not decide to act on his/her epistemic acceptance, depending on the risk and benefit at stake. (Goldsmith & Koriat, 2008) Utility does not just influence the selection of certain epistemic norms of acceptance. It also influences the decision to act in a way that may depart greatly from the cognitive output of epistemic acceptance. 35

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Analysis of strategic acceptance: Subjective Expected Utility theory Parameters: Value Probability Expected Utility = value x probability Each course of action (x i ) should be evaluated by myltiplying a subjective valuation of its consequences (reward) u(x i ) by their probability of occurrence P(x i ) i u(x i ) P(x i ) 37

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Conceptual argument The existence of an autonomous level of epistemic acceptance enables agents to have a stable epistemic map that is independent from local and unstable instrumental considerations. It is functionally adaptive to prevent the contents of epistemic evaluation from being affected by utility and risk. 39

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Argument from metacognitive studies (Koriat and Goldsmith, 1996) In situations where agents are forced to conduct a cognitive task, strategic acceptance is ruled out: agents merely express their epistemic acceptance. In contrast, when agents can freely consider how to plan their action, given its stakes, they can refrain from acting on the unique basis of their epistemic acceptance. 40

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Argument from metacognitive studies A decision mechanism is used to compare the probability for their acceptance being correct and a preset response criterion probability, based on the implicit or explicit payoffs. Agents are allowed to strategically withhold or volunteer an answer according to their personal control policy (risk-aversive or risk-seeking), associated with the anticipated costs and benefits (Koriat and Goldsmith, 1996). 41

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Argument from metacognitive studies Strategic acceptance can be impaired in patients with schizophrenia, while epistemic acceptance is not (Koren et al. 2006) this suggests that epistemic and strategic acceptances are cognitively distinct steps. 42

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Context: also determined by stakes Acceptance is context dependent for two reasons: 1. Its norm (constituting this type of accepting) is strategically dependent on the instrumental context of a plan to act. 2. The decision to act on its content (what is finally accepted) is secondarily adjusted to the expected gain/cost of content being correct or incorrect. 43

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Three types of errors: instrumental Instrumental errors occur when selecting an epistemic norm, ie a type of acceptance, inappropriate to a context, (for example, trying to reconstruct a shopping list accurately, when comprehensiveness is sufficient), 45

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Three types of errors: epistemic Epistemic errors occur in misapplying the selected norm to a given cognitive content, (for example, seeming to remember that P when one merely imagines that P) in forming an incorrect judgment of confidence about ones epistemic performance (for example, being highly confident in having correctly learned an item when one will actually fail to retrieve it ). 46

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Three types of errors: Strategic Strategic errors occur when incorrectly setting the decision criterion given the stakes i.e., taking an epistemic decision to be non- important when it objectively is, and reciprocally. 47

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1 – Is Acceptance a Natural Kind? If acceptances can be governed by epistemic norms as disparate as intelligibility, coherence, consensus and accuracy, they should not be treated as a natural kind: there is no feature common to the various forms of acceptance, and for that reason, the concept of acceptance should be relinquished. 49

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Response Normative diversity in acceptances is observed in metacognitive studies: agents, according to circumstances, opt for accuracy or comprehensiveness, or use fluency as a quick, although loose way, of assessing truthfulness (Reber and Schwarz 1999). 50

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Response What makes accepting a unitary mental action is its particular function: that of adjusting to various standards of utility the cognitive activity associated with planning and acting on the world. Also, acceptances have the general property of not qualifying for full-blown truth, but for quasi-truth Gibbard, 2012), acceptability (Yalcin, 2007).

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Response The semantics of each form of acceptance will be different informational consequence for accepting as uncertain/certain in epistemic modals; non factual probability judgments (Yalcin, 2007). accepting the consequence of a supposition, in indicative conditionals Mere semantic compatibility for accepting P as coherent with R.

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2- Sophistication implausible? Do ordinary agents have the required sophistication to manage acceptances as described, by selecting the kind of epistemic acceptance that is most profitable given a context of planning, keeping track of the implicit or explicit payoffs for a particular option, setting on this basis their response criterion ? 53

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Response Undoubtedly, agents do not have in general the conceptual resources that would allow them to identify the epistemic norm relevant to a context. Agents, however, learn to associate implicitly a given norm with a given cognitive task and context: their know-how is revealed in their practical ability to monitor their acceptances along the chosen normative dimension (Perfect and Schwartz, 2002). 54

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3- Value Pluralism and Epistemological Relativism Does not such a variety of epistemic standards pave the way for epistemic value pluralism, i.e., the denial that truth is the only valuable goal to pursue? Our variety of epistemic acceptings should indeed be welcome by epistemic value pluralists, who claim that coherence, or comprehensiveness, are epistemic goods for their own sake (Kvanvig 2005). 55

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3- Value Pluralism and Epistemological Relativism It is open to epistemic value monists, however, to interpret these various acceptances as instrumental steps toward acceptance at, i.e. as epistemic desiderata (Alston 2005). The present project, however, is not the epistemological study of what constitutes success in inquiry. It rather aims to explore the multiplicity of acceptances open to natural or artificial agents, given the informational needs that arise in connection with their final ends across multiple contexts. 56

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4- Epistemic norms without action? Is not a characterization of epistemic norms through types of cognitive actions restricting unduly the scope of norms, which standardly apply to propositions, or to utterances, independently of their cognitive source? Agents are de facto and de jure sensitive to epistemic norms only when they can control their cognition (evolution provides organisms with norm-sensitive mechanisms but learning by trial and error is not revising). 57

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Projectivism applied to norms Agents able to control their cognition tend to interpret in normative terms any content, whether controllable or not, which is probably the most economical way of being interpretively successful. However, a realist about norms can hold both that Agents only can use norms at a personal level when they control their cognitive activity There are objective informational properties that explain why evolution 58

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Realism about norms However, a realist about norms can hold both that Agents only can use norms at a personal level in order to guide their cognitive activity when they are able to control it. There are objective informational properties that explain why evolution has driven cognitive systems to be sensitive to such and such a norm in such and such a context. 59